Search watoday:

Search in:

Birnie sentence decision after WA election

A sentence review for serial killer Catherine Birnie is expected to be completed in early March but a decision can't be made until after the West Australian election.

The Prisoners Review Board began the review on Friday and is scheduled to hand its report to Attorney General Michael Mischin around March 2.

But with the government in caretaker mode at that time, Mr Mischin can't make his final decision on Birnie's future until after the state election on March 9.

Under law, Birnie's life sentence is reviewed every three years.

Advertisement

Former Attorney General Christian Porter, who left state politics for a tilt at the federal arena, in March 2010 decided Birnie would not be placed on parole or put into a re-socialisation program.

WA's attorney general in 2007, Jim McGinty, said Birnie should never be freed from jail.

Birnie and her late partner David Birnie raped, stabbed and clubbed to death four victims in their Willagee house, in Perth's southern suburbs, in 1986.

They were caught only when one of their intended victims escaped after they abducted her at knifepoint.

The pair were handed strict-security life sentences for the murders and David Birnie hanged himself in his protective custody Casuarina Prison cell in 2005.

She wasn't allowed to attend his funeral.

A 2007 review of Birnie, who is serving her sentence at Bandyup Women's Prison on Perth's north-eastern outskirts, found she was at low risk of reoffending but her release was rejected because of the extreme nature of her crimes.

Birnie, now 60, left her husband and six children in 1985 to live with David Birnie.